311 – GISCafe Voicehttps://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan
Just another GIS Blogs weblogMon, 13 Aug 2018 16:52:20 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.69101652GISCafe’s 2016 Trends Reporthttps://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2016/01/08/giscafes-2016-trends-report/
https://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2016/01/08/giscafes-2016-trends-report/#respondFri, 08 Jan 2016 16:21:31 +0000http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/?p=4303Top trends that we can expect to see dominating the geospatial landscape in 2016 are trends driven in large part by world events and climate change. Technologies play a large part in how well we will be able to manage climate change and attendant disasters, world events that include terrorism, and disease.

Our trends list includes: climate change, disease trends, indoor mapping, Esri storymapping, and low cost storage in the cloud, many of which are linked in importance.

Climate Change

Climate Change mapping analysis is a vital part of the big picture looking at how to manage the crisis of climate change globally.

Chen Zhen, Secretary General of CEDAAB (left) and Leon Qiu, Vice Secretary General of CEDAAB and Principal at DLR Group

In our coverage of COP21/CMP11it was noted by Prince Charles of the UK that climate change was a huge factor in nations’ suffering from famine and drought, which caused people to need to migrate away from their homes, which caused deep distress leading to terrorism. So in the larger scheme of things, climate change is linked to:

Jim Tobias, Senior GIS developer, Northrup Grumman Contractor, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, provided the above links as well as others in this article to enlighten some future trends.

According to Ed Mazria, Architecture 2030 Founder and CEO, the long term goal of the resultant Paris Agreement committed almost 200 countries including the U.S., China, India and the EU nations, to keep the global average temperature increase to “well below 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C”. The China Accord is a manifestation of the efforts of architects and planners in China and internationally to lower greenhouse emissions in the build environment.

Ed Mazria presenting the China Accord at the UNFCCC COP21 Buildings Day

Disease Trends

At two primary geospatial events last year, keynote speakers spoke on the topic of epidemiology.

When Ebola hit West Africa in 2014, the outbreak began similarly to the way it happened in central Africa originally, and may have come from an infected bat. The virus did something different this time. “The virus took advantage of the fact no one had seen it before and when they finally began to know about it, it had already spread across over 26,000 people, 11,000 people dead,” said Dr. Aylward.

“Stopping the outbreak would require extraordinary international and national response.”

Cultural problems were on the horizon as specially clad teams would have to come and carry away the dead which proved terrifying to the people in the small villages. This is a beautiful area, but the terrain isolates villages and also fed the rumor mill of who was coming to help and what the disease actually was.

What was indicative of for everyone involved, was that to fight a disease of such magnitude, responders should be prepared for it on a larger scale than just Africa in the event that it becomes disease that affects the rest of the world. We did see isolated cases of Ebola in the UK and the U.S. in 2014, as well as some other countries.

While indoor mapping has been talked about for many years, it would seem that with the use of more sensor technology, it is coming to the forefront. The need to be able to track indoor assets with GIS has been growing and while initially, it was considered for defense, it is now being used for retail and accessibility.

Las Vegas Convention Center

TomTom (TOM2) has announced a strategic partnership with worldwide indoor mapping leader, Micello Inc., extending the reach of its mapping products to include indoor venues.

TomTom’s business customers will now be able to use Micello’s pedestrian-friendly indoor maps and venue content with points-of-interest data worldwide.

Michael Healander, founder of Geometri, spoke with GISCafe Voice about the evolution of that company, and the recent announcement from Geographic Information Services, Inc. (GISi) an Esri Platinum Partner, that its Board of Directors has formally approved the spin-off of its operating unit, GISi Indoors, as an independent company. The new business is named Geometri, LLC., Geometri is the name of their flagship indoor GIS software-as-a-service product.

“The reason we got into indoor mapping,” said Healander, “Is we focused on the fact that when you go indoors you lose your navigation on your phone. And there’s a lot of opportunity as people spend money indoors. It’s hard to navigate, and we took on that problem. We built a platform and called it Geometri. We have taken complex pieces of technology to create indoor GPS, whether indoor maps, indoor routing or indoor search. We’ve taking the outdoor routing algorithms that we used in our main company and now we make them for indoor.”

Now you can do multi-floor routing, wheelchair accessibility routing, routing for how to get to class or through the building at the University of Washington. At the same institution, it will route you by selecting “avoid stairs” to support Americans with Disabilities Act.

Esri Storymapping has provided a large amount of data in a novelized way, that is easy to ingest and has revolutionized the way we can get data about a particular event.

As described by the author of the Star Wars Storymap, Isabella Rojs, “With this map, I would like to give you a worldwide tour of all the locations used for filming the six Star Wars movies. The tour will lead you from Episode I to Episode VI, from Guatemala to China.”

The Cloud has been on the geospatial bucket list for a few years now, but it continues to be an avenue by which more data can be stored, reviewed and manipulated.

(C) DigitalGlobe 2015.

The ability to share high resolution imagery is having a huge impact of world affairs, evidenced by the company SpaceKnow’s ability to show the historical activity at the North Korean Nuclear testing site that followed the reported Thermo Nuclear test this week. Spaceknow used its analytics to detect changes in the location of the supposed nuclear test facility. What their imagery shows is that the test facility has expanded over a larger geographical area in the past few years.

Using Spaceknow analytics, we were able to detect changes in the area of the supposed nuclear test facility. The facility clearly expanded over a larger area in the last years. All Images (C) DigitalGlobe 2015.

Esri and NASA are collaborating to improve access to imagery and raster data stored in the cloud, by using a combination of Meta Raster Format (MRF) and Limited Error Raster Compression (LERC).

According to company materials, MRF is an Open raster format originally designed at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) to optimize web access to rasters. LERC is a highly efficient algorithm that provides fast lossless and controlled lossy compression of image and raster data. Esri was recently awarded a US Patent for LERC, and is making the patented LERC technology freely available to the geospatial and earth sciences community.

The advantage of MRF and LERC that Esri and NASA will make available is that organizations will be able to lower storage costs and gain fast access to imagery and data as web services.

Handheld’s Nautiz X8 is an ultra rugged device

In addition, cloud enabled mobile devices allow data to be taken out into the field and gathered in the field with increasing efficiency. UAVs offer a new exciting way to gather data in the field at less cost than satellite imagery and scanning. Consequently, we will see more apps and ways of facilitating these processes as time goes on.

]]>https://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2016/01/08/giscafes-2016-trends-report/feed/04303Hexagon and Huawei Partner to Create Smarter Citieshttps://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/12/01/hexagon-and-huawei-partner-to-create-smarter-cities/
https://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/12/01/hexagon-and-huawei-partner-to-create-smarter-cities/#respondWed, 02 Dec 2015 04:44:06 +0000http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/?p=4281Hexagon and Huawei are partnering to meet the challenges of the global city dwelling population, with all its safety and infrastructure needs. Since most people live in cities, Hexagon and Huawei see an opportunity to integrate Huawei’s communications hardware with Hexagon’s safety and infrastructure software solutions.

Overall architecture of Smart City Joint Solution

Justin Schmidt, Executive Manager, Hexagon Ventures, spoke with GISCafe Voice about the goals of the Huawei and Hexagon Safe City Solutions:

GISCafe Voice: What types of offerings will Hexagon be able to deliver as a result of this combined solution from Hexagon and Huawei that were not able to be delivered before the partnership?

Integrated Intelligent Video Surveillance providing video surveillance capability to dispatchers at a control center or triggering alarms from video analytics.

JS: The combined Huawei and Hexagon Safe City Solutions help city governments and law enforcement agencies respond to and resolve issues quickly and more efficiently. Based on open standard technologies, they cover the spectrum of public safety needs from emergency planning through response management to investigation and resolution.

With the Joint Solution, Hexagon and Huawei offer a pre-integrated communication and management platform for multi-agency rapid call taking and dispatching. The Joint Solution combines the strength of Huawei’s communication system and Hexagon’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) solution. By adding Huawei’s eLTE (Enterprise Long-Term Evolution – a broadband private mission-critical network for voice, data and video dispatching and sharing) communication network, we enable a wide range of Safe City applications. Communication channels can be established from VoIP, eLTE and TETRA devices seamlessly.

Video from eLTE devices in the field can now be handled by dispatchers, making real-time, on-the-scene video integral part of the decision making process in the command center. Video analysis can be used to trigger alarms that are evaluated by operators who can follow standard procedures and decide how to best respond to each situation based on live video data from the field.

The solution also enables event data dispatching, which provides field officers real-time event data at their fingertips and synchronises the command center with every piece of information captured in the field. In addition to regular call notifications, external events such as SMS, MMS, video or multiple sensors/alarms can easily be integrated.

GISCafe Voice: Have the two companies been working on technologies together before this partnership, if so what technologies have emerged?

JS: Huawei and Hexagon have not collaborated before. This new partnership is a result of a perfect match of extensive infrastructure and deep infrastructure management expertise on the one hand, and leading-edge technologies for public safety and CAD, geo-sensors and GIS on the other hand. In addition, both companies are fully committed to meeting the global challenge of rapidly increasing urbanisation.

GISCafe Voice: Is it the intention of Hexagon to embody communications into the smart city models, and if so, how will this be accomplished?

JS: Yes, this is accomplished by being able to offer Huawei’s solutions, such as their Internet Protocol Contact Center (IPCC) integrated multi-media contact center, their Intelligent Video Surveillance (IVS) products and their eLTE (Enterprise Long Term Evolution broadband network). These are now integrated to our I/CAD and Security Framework suite of products.

GISCafe Voice: Are there any safety and crisis management solutions overlaps in the products offered from both companies? How will those be managed in future solutions?

JS: There are no overlaps. Huawei focuses on ICT (Information Communication Technologies) hardware solutions (such as routers, switchers, CCTV cameras, mobile phones and radios), while Hexagon is responsible for the CAD and GIS software components of the software solutions.

GISCafe Voice: What is ‘broadband trunking’?

JS: In telecommunications, trunking is a method for a system to provide network access to many clients by sharing a set of lines or frequencies instead of providing them individually. This is analogous to the structure of a tree with one trunk and many branches. Examples of this include telephone systems and the VHF radios commonly used by police agencies. Huawei offer eLTE (which combines traditional trunking radio within their Mobile devices), a very unique and innovative Broadband Trunking System. This is the first LTE broadband trunking solution to provide voice and video dispatching, which greatly increases emergency centers’ efficiency. Huawei’s eLTE Systems, based on advanced wireless broadband technology, provide 100 Mbit/s downlink and 50 Mbit/s uplink throughput. As a result, a single network can support multimedia trunking, voice and video scheduling, high-definition video surveillance, ultra-remote data acquisition, and mobile office services. Other features include a compact core network, distributed base stations, and terminal devices that can be used in harsh outdoor environments. http://e.huawei.com/en/products/wireless/elte-trunking

GISCafe Voice: What sorts of time/efficiency savings do you see in the combined solution?

JS: For an example, let’s take a look at one of our larger public safety customers with more than 11,000 staff and a nationwide jurisdiction of 268,021 km2 (103483 mi2). This existing Hexagon computer-aided dispatch (CAD) customer with a nationwide deployment, has empowered 6,500 frontline officers by giving them the mobile solution. By extending critical CAD capabilities into the field, responders can gain situational awareness, share real-time information, and request resources. This enables officers to reduce trips to the station and improves communications with dispatchers and other responders. And it has resulted in time savings of approximately 520,000 hours annually, effectively putting 345 more officers on the streets each year and an estimated cost savings of USD 177 million over the next 12 years.

GISCafe Voice: Do you envision a singular product or line of products emerging from this partnership?

JS: Hexagon’s and Huawei’s Joint Solution currently focuses on Safe City but there obviously are other challenges that could be addressed by tightly coupling powerful software solutions with powerful ICT hardware solutions.

Integrated Intelligent Video Surveillance providing video surveillance capability to dispatchers at a control center or triggering alarms from video analytics.

]]>https://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/12/01/hexagon-and-huawei-partner-to-create-smarter-cities/feed/04281Northrup Grumman Hosts Panel Discussion on New Technologieshttps://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/07/07/northrup-grumman-hosts-panel-discussion-on-new-technologies/
https://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/07/07/northrup-grumman-hosts-panel-discussion-on-new-technologies/#respondTue, 07 Jul 2015 19:41:17 +0000http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/?p=4056Partnerships, unmanned spacecraft, technologies and sensors were some of the topics covered in a panel discussion and press luncheon held at GEOINT Symposium 2015 in Washington D.C. recently, by Northrup Grumman.

An E-2C test aircraft assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 20 conducts an aerial refueling dry-plug engagement with an F/A-18.

Northrup Grumman, known also as an aerospace/defense company, is a global security company providing innovative systems, products and solutions in unmanned systems, cyber, C4ISR, and logistics and modernization to government and commercial customers worldwide.

Northrop Grumman’s solutions provide unprecedented precision, location and identification of threats. We have successfully fielded over 300 SIGINT and GEOINT systems and have the experience to integrate a broad array of collection types together into a multi-INT capability.

Moderator Sean Love asked about how you might focus technology resources and human resources, with the emergence of leading technologies taking a front row. “How do they fit in with the data-centric model?” he asked, noting that the government is no longer in the commanding position of owning all the sensors.

“We can’t just look at the defense industry for solutions anymore. Solutions come from commercial,” said McFadden. “A lot of of underlying technology is transferable and we are looking differently at partnerships.”

In the Department of Defense many people express frustration at the acquisition process. There is concern that commercial companies may not understand intelligence work.

At the same time, there is growing government interest in small satellites which Northrup Grumman provides products and solutions for and what to do with the data. The old model in a lot of ways is no longer effective because of the cost and time involved.

Love talked about “Technology + methodology = core capability.”

Feng said that we need nuances in systems and to get close to the analyst. “IMPACT is our mission-driven technology. The mission drives the direction.”

Northrop Grumman’s new LN-200C fiber-optic gyro inertial measurement unit is specially designed for the commercial market.

Partnerships will be embraced by the government. “We’re looking at small businesses that are not defense-oriented for acquisition,” said McFadden. “And the platforms that can be ‘servers in the sky,’ to send back information, not raw data.”

Love said they need to connect old legacy data to the new method. “There’s an opportunity in linked data to link outside the traditional relational database. Spatial processes must ripple through the relational database.”

15-20% of U.S. government software projects fail completely. Requirements don’t match user needs. The user experience needs to take data and make it actionable. Also, it’s important to take the human aspects of interacting with technology and conduct research on it.

Data is constantly evolving and never rests. Timeliness of data has an impact and decision advantage that is sometimes short term. “We need to condition data so the user doesn’t have to do it, and do it with a pragmatic approach,” said Feng.

There are legalities about taking on commercial sensors, “there are so many sensors and an ocean of data,” said Love.

“Mission-driven processes collaborate technology development with customers and roll it back into our larger research,” said Feng. “The analyst already buys into it. This is a user-centric design process.

]]>https://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/07/07/northrup-grumman-hosts-panel-discussion-on-new-technologies/feed/04056From the Exhibit Floor at GEOINT Symposium 2015https://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/07/01/from-the-exhibit-floor-at-geoint-symposium-2015/
https://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/07/01/from-the-exhibit-floor-at-geoint-symposium-2015/#respondThu, 02 Jul 2015 02:29:57 +0000http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/?p=4049The exhibits at GEOINT Symposium 2015 this past week in Washington D.C. reflected the direction the government is heading with regard to new products, technologies and services.

The new government initiative of doing more with less has generated interest among a group of vendors in partnership with the Centralized Super Computer Facility (CSCF) program. Lockheed Martin, one of the vendors, has developed a Multilevel Secure ecosystem (MLS) using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5+ for both single system image and for a cluster configuration. The focus of this system is to use MLS to enable data fusion and/or consolidate hardware systems rather than promote duplication.

Lockheed Martin also has an end-to-end, customizable solution for web and social media collection, processing, monitoring and analytics called LM WISDOM. Another interesting product from the company is iVIz or Intel Viz, a portable, scalable geospatial visualization tool that provides situational awareness capabilities and 2D/3D content to field users. It is not associated with a proprietary tool and makes sharing, adding and visualizing data in the field easier.

HP was also there to speak to the need for the cloud, analytics and data management, and to garner interest around HP services. As the government budget has shrunk, they are more in need of efficiencies such as the cloud and more collaborative tools. iSight is IC intelligence that provides a framework for how IT will be done in the next generation.

Orlando Figueroa, vice president, Federal Consulting and Intelligence Segment, U.S. Public Sector, of HP, feels that the federal government is moving from a climate where every agency with its own data is moving to shared data through the cloud, data warehousing and analytics. There will still be a need for an internal cloud but there will also be “community clouds,” for multiple agencies. These will still be firewalled from the rest of the world.

Altair ‘s Kirk Monroe talked about how enterprise services and IT architecture can help agencies come closer together. He said that the “gap is getting smaller,” that the government was “risk adverse, but now over 400 Fortune 500 companies have the same issues as the government. Best practices from those firms are beginning to permeate the government sector. Their security challenges are higher, but as Monroe pointed out, health care is very much like intelligence in its data challenges.

John Ratigan, president of iDirect Government, has a long career in satellite communication. Data can now be sent over a satellite link. They are using encryption, sensors built into ManPac, etc. They have the largest communication network in the military and have Combat Support Services with 4,000 terminals. “All of them are on our network, and military personnel can order everything they need this way. It can also be used to email to families, and for USO services like broadcasting football.”

More is being done from airborne platforms of “stagnant sensors,” those buried in the ground.

It was the first time at GEOINT for Pitney Bowes – MapInfo, where they demonstrated raster compression on the fly. With a 40 MB file they will not lose true resolution of data with this method.

The company has a federal sales team for selling “faster raster” as they call it. Joe Francica said the company will promote digital commerce to location intelligence. It is well positioned to do this, with its history on the Pitney Bowes side of shipping and customer engagement, and shipping is all about location. The MapInfo side comes with strong geospatial and location intelligence.

Dave Kornick, director of Geospatial Systems at Harris Government Communications Systems Division, talked about the value of the acquisition of Exelis, considering that this will bring the company closer to what they view as “the intelligent Earth,” being able to provide sensors of all varieties to monitor the Earth’s condition. Among the systems that Harris exhibited at the symposium were CorvusEye wide area motion imagery system, Geiger-mode LiDAR, object identification tracking.

Powered by Harris is the exactEarth real-time global maritime vessel tracking called exactView RT. It encompasses new satellite AIS architecture that gives real-time continuous satellite coverage for maritime. The satellites are networked together with crosslinks and communicate with multiple ground stations continually. This solution is in response for the need of real-time tracking of ships that is unavailable through a large part of the seas.

InQuisient launched some new tools at GEOINT based on its enterprise data management platform that helps government organizations mange data calls and large projects more efficiently. The Project Portfolio Insight tool provides an intelligent “big picture” solution for any large scale project portfolio management project. Using a single system and interface, users can track, review and contribute to managing numerous projects. The Data Call Central Tool is used to streamline the data call process that allows efficient collection of data from many places within the organization. The InQuisient platform is used in many intelligence organizations including the Department of Defense, and Homeland Security.

Droneware imagery content management and Knowvation geospatial intelligence from PTFS are two interesting systems demonstrated at the symposium. Droneware is a platform designed to capture, tag and manage and disseminate imagery from drones, something that didn’t exist a year ago. Droneware parses geospatial tags from sensors mounted on drones and UAS devices, from there the data is organized into an intelligent order. Knowvation GS has geospatial search and discovery capability that is used for analysis of large satellite imagery and GIS archives by intelligence and government agencies.

NJVC provides more “mission-critical” IT enterprise using cloud migration and hybrid IT enterprise management and monitoring. The company has been helping the federal enterprise since 2000.

These are just a fraction of the many companies that were represented at the symposium. Clearly, the focus is on some aspect of IT, security, spatial analytics and management of big data, that has the promise of being able to be used effectively by more stakeholders and to fill the need for timely, affordable, accessible technology to meet the ever-increasing demands of the world of geo-intelligence.

Recently, GISCafe Voice spoke with R.J. Talyor, vice president of Product Management at Geofeedia. Geofeedia is a patented, cloud-based platform, which searches, analyzes and monitors real time social media posts from any geographic location globally.

Recording analytics and sentiiment

In a couple of recent GeoFeedia case studies, the platform has been used to uncover drug use and distribution among teens at parties in the Los Angeles area, involving the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the FDA. In one other instance, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Men’s Division Basketball Tournament was already very active in social media, but needed a better way to cut through the noise on social media and discover and engage with social media users posting at specific locations of interest across Indianapolis. They were able to get up and running quickly on the GeoFeedia platform and draw perimeters around key locations, from which they gathered rich geo-tagged social media data in a matter of minutes. Consequently, the team was able to use GeoFeedia to make sure the fans had a good fan experience, and that counterfeit passes were aborted, as well as that tournament title sponsors receive high returns on their investment.

Multi-location recording

GISCafe: How quickly can Geofeedia make something useful out of the data it picks up?

R.J. Talyor: Immediately. Customers are able to discover, analyze and take action on posts since Geofeedia surfaces this content in about 15 seconds after it’s posted.

GISCafe Voice: When you say it is a “social listening tool,” what does that mean exactly?

GISCafe Voice: What will customers be able to do with the updated tool that they could not do before?

R.J. Talyor: Geofeedia customers have access to ten new core capabilities including the ability to aggregate data across multiple locations, track sentiment in one or more locations, and access this data on-the-go with the mobile app.

GISCafe Voice: Where does the data usually go after it has been compiled – and how is it sorted, for use?

R.J.Talyor: Geofeedia data is archived for customers within the cloud for additional analysis.

]]>https://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/06/24/within-seconds-geofeedia-customers-can-take-action-on-data/feed/14033I/Map Editor and I/Map Editor for ArcGIS Now Availablehttps://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/06/03/imap-editor-and-imap-editor-for-arcgis-now-available/
https://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/06/03/imap-editor-and-imap-editor-for-arcgis-now-available/#respondWed, 03 Jun 2015 23:06:47 +0000http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/?p=4006The result of a collaboration between Esri and Intergraph Security Government and Infrastructure (SG&I) announced in March is the release of I/Map Editor for ArcGIS, a new product that works directly with Esri’s ArcGIS Platform to migrate geospatial data into Intergraph’s Computer-Aided Dispatch Software (I/CAD), allowing tighter integration between those two products. The new product was unveiled at this week’s HXGN LIVE 2015 in Las Vegas. Vice president of Public Safety Products, Intergraph SG&I Kalyn Sims, talks to GISCafe Voice about the announcement.

GISCafe Voice: “I/Map Editor for ArcGIS brings advanced mapping features to Intergraph’s map build environment, automating and streamlining map creation in I/CAD.” Can you describe how users might use this tool?

Kalyn Sims: Intergraph´s I/CAD system uses a proprietary map format that supports many different types of functions, such as validating addresses that come in through 911 calls, geocoding those addresses and more. Built on Esri’s ArcGIS Platform, I/Map Editor for ArcGIS enables I/CAD map production within ArcGIS. An extension hosted in ArcMap, it natively connects to Esri data sources.

With I/Map Editor for ArcGIS, users can:

Identify geometries not supported by the I/ CAD map, e.g., features with more than 8,000 vertices, arcs, and geometry collections

Build the street centerline network for routing and location verification

Produce polygon files for service zones and other geographic areas, e.g., patrol areas and neighborhoods

Publish the I/CAD map file

Define default routing parameters for use in I/CAD routing

GISCafe Voice: “I/Map Editor for ArcGIS is designed to minimize the number of different systems and steps required for ArcGIS users, offering them a one-stop shop for uploading data into their I/CAD system.” Can you describe how this make it easier for the data from ArcGIS to come into I/CAD systems?

Kalyn Sims: Previously, ArcGIS users were required to go through multiple steps in order to get their data transferred into the format required by I/CAD. We understood this created challenges for customers in managing GIS data on multiple systems. I/Map Editor for ArcGIS streamlines that process and allows customers to convert their data in ArcGIS, making the process more efficient.

GISCafe Voice: Is this a free feature with subscription to I/CAD and Esri ArcGIS or is there an additional cost?

Kalyn Sims: Yes, there is a cost attached to both options: I/Map Editor and I/Map Editor for ArcGIS.

According to company materials, built on Intergraph’s GeoMedia, I/Map Editor permits the use of GIS data from third-party systems as the source of map graphics in I/CAD. Built on ArcGIS, the new I/Map Editor for ArcGIS enables I/CAD map production within ArcGIS. An extension hosted in ArcMap, it natively connects to Esri data sources.

Intergraph’s I/CAD system is critical to public safety operations, enabling agencies to promptly answer emergency and non-emergency calls, create and update incidents and manage multiple resources in real time. Intergraph’s I/Map Editor products facilitate the use of GIS data as the source of mapping information in I/CAD.

]]>https://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/06/03/imap-editor-and-imap-editor-for-arcgis-now-available/feed/04006GIS at Autodesk’s AEC Media Summithttps://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/05/28/gis-at-autodesks-aec-media-summit/
https://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/2015/05/28/gis-at-autodesks-aec-media-summit/#commentsThu, 28 May 2015 14:51:00 +0000http://www10.giscafe.com/blogs/gissusan/?p=3999Last week media trekked to Autodesk’s new Innovation and Design Building in the heart of Boston for the Autodesk AEC Media Summit. While the previous LEED Gold headquarters in Waltham, Mass. was a testament to the company’s commitment to sustainable design, the Innovation and Design Building speaks to their branching out in their innovative capacities.

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2016 & InfraWorks 2016

The presentations and site visits were not limited to discussions of architecture and building, however. A significant part of Autodesk’s vision includes the real world building of major infrastructure and cities, all of which require that geospatial information take a significant role.

Paul McRoberts, Senior Director, Infrastructure Product Group, began his presentation by saying that you will want to “layer in good quality engineering information so you can see if the project will behave as you want it to. And, you need to be able to share things openly.”

Immersive user experience

Real World Context

McRoberts said that the following represent a real world approach to looking at infrastructure design:

Exploring Design alternatives – what the future could look like. What’s the best design to get you from point a to b?

Accelerate approvals – better views into the data

Informed decisions early in project – help you decide

In context engineering – bury analytics into the project

Better project delivery

Connected Building Information Modeling (BIM) for infrastructure

“We have ModelBuilder in InfraWorks, and with it, within seven minutes you have a model in context of the real world. You can then begin layering in additional information,” McRoberts said. “You can pick an entire town or polygon oriented environment, with ModelBuilder.”

An example of unifying data successfully is AECOM’s project with the City of Edmonton, where they are unifying data such as GIS, CAD, BIM and LiDAR.

A 78 kilometer highway proposal in China introduces design alternatives that interconnected different parts of the city. Planners could explore design alternatives to quickly plan new projects for stakeholder review.

“The analytic is driving the geometry in the project itself,” McRoberts pointed out. “The geometry is designed so that the analytic and rules can change when other ideas are introduced.”

The analytic is taken down to a generalist’s view as an engineer.

The result is in-context engineering, where engineers can drag and drop to put new designs into their models.

In running traffic analysis – in a parking garage design example, the analytics look at traffic flow and see what impact it will have.

With the use of multiple services running in the cloud, you can bring in data on restricted areas, watershed, cemeteries, tribal lands, cost level information. You can determine the best way to get from point a to b, and can run vertical optimizations and see how cut and fill determine the project.

“These two things combined make a difference,” said McRoberts.

In another in-context example, for road drainage analysis, the road is designed by road and road type. You will need to remove water from the road. You will run an analytic to see if water is falling at 2 inches an hour, etc. and then get it running simultaneously in the model.

Bridges are big analytical projects, and by using cloud services, you can also produce a code report. You can connect all workflows together with seamless connection to production and delivery for Roads and Bridges.

“You can bring all information into Civil 3D and get your drawings out, then move it into other products such as Revit Structure and InfraWorks,” said McRoberts.

“In making changes to the environment, the intelligence is driving the model to help you see how well city is doing,” said McRoberts.

Using flood simulation in the UK, you could see the difference between water elevation, water depth and velocity build with InfraWorks ModelBuilder, then put in point cloud information.

Flood Analysis

“Within InfraWorks, we handle massive amounts of point cloud data,” said McRoberts. “What we’re more interested in is classification of assets and recognized features of assets, then we can take assets and convert them into asset data.”

The product also includes Presenter Mode that is more interactive. You don’t have to be an InfraWorks creator to use it to get in front of an agency or town council.

“This is a way for someone to get up in front of an audience and explain the project proposed,” said McRoberts.

Field Asset Management

Field Asset Management is built for people in the field who need to access data that comes from any GIS, Maximo, ERP systems, etc., and collect assets while they’re in the field.

An example is the maintenance department at Penn State, that has cut work orders by having information going back and forth from the field. They are using voice recognition, snapping a photo, they can develop heat maps around professors, and use crowdsourcing information for jobs on campus.

311 public engagement into cities includes the feature app Street Bump on citizens’ phones, that every time they hit a street bump or pothole it registers, goes to a map, the map goes to the DOT and they can register it.

“This crowdsourcing is all driven from this mobile environment and tied to location,” said McRoberts. “You can also develop heat maps around where to send the service crew.”

He added that a lot of potential for the way to change asset management was to bring it to the field.

Autodesk is getting pulled into the 2024 Olympics because they have customers bringing them to other companies. “Companies are more engaged with their process of putting to put a bid together,” said McRoberts. “Also, cloud services with multiple releases allow you to have more interaction with customers.”

Customer site visit: BioGen pharmaceutical company built their own cogeneration plant to provide efficient energy to all buildings on their Cambridge campus. The plant converts natural gas fuel into electricity. The waste heat generated by making electricity creates steam used to heat and cool the buildings.